Artificial Schemes Of Values

engraver and to the photographic process-block maker a refined study of values spells extra time, trouble, and expense. The nearer the approach to diagrammatic representation, the cheaper will be the reproduction and the clearer the result in rapid printing. Hence the greater number of ' artists 5 aim at some artificial scheme of values which shall prove acceptable, usually by its tidiness of presentation, and the public eye in England, already too inclined to worship tidiness, is readily educated to demand such meretricious finish everywhere. The matter becomes a practical one, and ceases to be purely aesthetic ; all unconsciously the average Anglo-Saxon feels himself on safer ground. True, great masters simplify a scheme of values, but they do it in certain subtle ways, and I find in practice that I am always obliged to employ the more expensive process-block when in this, or another book, I wish to reproduce their work ; that of a modern pen draughtsman would be reproducible by a lineblock. The pen drawing not done with a view to reproduction is almost always either accompanied by slight wash, or possesses certain refinements of value variation in the lines themselves which unfit it for the brutal line-block method.1

In Chapter II, and indeed from place to place throughout the book, I have insisted on the necessity of working as a creative artist motived by strongly-felt emotion. I wish to call attention to the inferior quality of the diagrams which I myself have made for these pages. In making them I was under the influence of no emotion ; I was intent on demonstrating some didactic point, in short, for the moment I was not an artist. These diagrams in themselves afford an excellent illustration of the thesis. I was harassed by the desire to do tidy work suitable for reproduction in an English book. With a view to saving expense I have tried to use ' line-blocks 5 as

1 Fig. 69 is a line-block from a pencil scribble. The reproduction is flat and quite different in aspect from the original.